Sex offender killed in blast

PUYALLUP, Wash. – A 26-year-old registered sex offender, who previously was convicted of abducting a Spokane boy, apparently was making bombs when an explosion blew off the top of a house where he was renting a room, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies said.

Investigators found the remains of a man believed to be Zane Dittman in the rubble during a search of the home Tuesday morning, sheriff’s Detective Ed Troyer said.

The blast and resulting fire caused extensive damage to the house south of this community. Puyallup is about six miles southeast of Tacoma.

“The explosion was pretty powerful,” Troyer said. “This wasn’t a little explosion. This was the real deal.”

Troyer said that about 11 p.m. Monday, the couple who owned the house called authorities after returning from a trip and finding that their roommate had been acting strangely and making explosive devices.

Troyer said Dittman, who was in the kitchen when deputies arrived, quickly grabbed some bottles, other items and a duffel bag containing what they recognized as the components of explosive devices and ran upstairs, where he turned on some loud music.

Deputies hustled the couple out of the house, and about 10 minutes later it exploded.

“He either accidentally or intentionally set the explosion off, which took the whole top floor off of the residence and engulfed the house in flames,” Troyer said. “Our deputies were standing 75 to 100 yards away. It drenched our deputies in beauty bark and dirt.”

Firefighters prevented damage to four neighboring houses that were evacuated as a precaution, and the man’s car was searched. “He’s had some issues with law enforcement over the years,” Troyer said, “and actually, from what we’re learning, had a rough week leading up to this … paranoid, changing locks and doing some strange stuff, according to witnesses.”

Dittman was convicted in 2003 of abducting his girlfriend’s 10-year-old son from her Spokane home. Dittman was originally charged with kidnapping and later pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt sentenced Dittman to a year in prison.

When the judge asked Dittman why he took the boy, he replied:

“To give him a better place; give him a better life. I was dead wrong.”